William Shakespeare

[PippinTook]

Do any of your guys like Shakespeare? It's kind of hard not to. What plays have you read? Which is your favorite and why?

I've read (so far, but many more to come)
Julius Caesar
A Midsummer Night's Dream
Twelfth Night
Taming of the Shrew
As You Like It
Romeo and Juliet

My favorites are definately Twelfth Night and A Midsummer Night's Dream. I love the comedies, and I adore Sir Andrew and Sir Toby. I had two fish named Andrew and Toby, but I had to give them away because we moved. I'm actually not quite finished with Romeo and Juliet, which I have liked but not as much as the others. It's really rather frustrating.

Anywho, I love Shakespeare, how about you?

[Count Comfect]

Will is definitely the best - read over 20 of the plays so far, which would make a long list now. But I do believe the Bard of Avon thread is still extant for discussing that, although I don't think it's been posted in since August.

[Beren3000]

I haven't read any of his "popular" plays, but I love the ones I've read so far:

Henry VI (all three parts)
Richard III
Titus Andronicus
The Comedy of Errors (currently reading it)

My favorite has to be Richard III, there's this monologue that Richard says near the end of the play that is just BEAUTIFUL!

[brownjenkins]

i've taken a few courses and read all of his plays... i have many favorites... but my top few are probably macbeth, othello, the tempest, measure for measure, twelfth night and as you like it

[Fat middle]

I ran a messagge board about Shakespeare some years ago with another mooter, Elanor. Well, it was not a great success (I think we never had more than five active users ) but it was a lot of fun! The board was on the ezboard platform and now it's completely lost because we didn't want to pay for it

Okay, my favourite plays are Richard II, The Merchant of Venice, King Lear... well, I could add a lot more

[brownjenkins]

Originally Posted by Fat middle

I ran a messagge board about Shakespeare some years ago with another mooter, Elanor. Well, it was not a great success (I think we never had more than five active users ) but it was a lot of fun! The board was on the ezboard platform and now it's completely lost because we didn't want to pay for it

Okay, my favourite plays are Richard II, The Merchant of Venice, King Lear... well, I could add a lot more

cool... wish i knew... i would have been #6

*thinks we should start a shakespeare section*

[Valandil]

I have not read 'Much Ado About Nothing' - but the movie version from several years back was HILARIOUS! How faithful was it to his script?

[brownjenkins]

Originally Posted by Valandil

I have not read 'Much Ado About Nothing' - but the movie version from several years back was HILARIOUS! How faithful was it to his script?

very faithful... most productions that kenneth branagh has been a part of usually are... henry v, much ado about nothing, hamlet, othello <--- all required viewing

[Mrs.Gimli]

Thats funny PippenTook becouse I watched HAMLET last night.I have read the unabriged version

[Count Comfect]

If by "holding onto some of the traditions" you mean constantly threatening to kick out anyone who wouldn't wear surplices, yes. Although Shakespeare lived in a relative dip in the intensity of what would later be identified as the low church/high church war. (Mostly) after Foxe, Goodman, and the other radicalized Marian exiles and before Laud, Milton, and the radicals on both sides.

[Gwaimir Windgem]

Anyone who wouldn't put on a surplice, and anyone who wouldn't take off a chasuble. Good ol' via media.

I don't think Milton was CoE; he would have been a heretic according to them, retaining the threefold ministry of bishop priest and deacon. For Milton, even the Presbyterian church structure was too centralised, organised, hierarchical, what have you.

The ghost in Hamlet, who died unshriven, seems to indicate a belief in something other than heaven and hell as possible destinations for the souls of the dead. While the Articles of Religion do not completely rule out the possibility of such a place, they do condemn the Romish doctrine of purgatory, and prayers for the dead were excised in the '52 BCP, which indicates (though, granted, does not absolutely demonstrate) a move away from alternatives to a strict heaven/hell divide. It would be a stretch to refer to this as being retained in the practices of the Anglican Church, though to attribute it to residual Catholicism still in the ideas of the people seems reasonable.

It was, I believe, customary at the time to portray Catholicism in a highly negative light; most people in society were Protestant or atheist, neither of whom had a high view of the Roman Church. But Friar Lawrence is a sympathetic character in Romeo and Juliet, in an age when Catholicism was in poor favor with society as a whole (even if they did retain some residual Catholicism). His mother also was, apparently, a member of a prominent Catholic family. If Shakespeare was not Catholic, it seems improbable that he was not at least sympathetic to Catholicism.

Of course, he was also gay, too.

[Count Comfect]

Atheism was considered as dangerous as Catholicism - witness Kit Marlowe being investigated for having given "the atheist lecture" to Walter Raleigh - and the two were often linked, ironically enough, in popular superstition. However, I don't think Elizabethan audiences were likely to have trouble with a Roman swearing by Jupiter or a Catholic crossing himself or worrying about last rites; the theater of the time seems to have swarmed with characters who would not have been accepted in contemporary culture. Perhaps this even served as a release. At any rate, I would hesitate to take any (Shakespearean) character's existence as an argument for Shakespeare's or his society's views towards any religion, although they are obviously examples of what sort of ideas were known (if not approved of or tolerated) in his day.

As for Milton, he would have told you he was Church of England, just that he believed the Church had to be further Reformed (by, say, abolishing the hierarchy and the Popish influences). This was part of the normal variation in Renaissance England, although he was an extremist of one party. Especially during Milton's life, violent (sometimes physically violent) disagreement about doctrine was a centerpiece of what it meant to be part of the English church.

[Count Comfect]

GW - am now in a Milton class here at grad school, and realizing that you may be righter about Milton than I thought. I still think I'm right about how he would have described himself, but others would probably have described him (and did; yay pamphlet wars!) the way you do.

[Gwaimir Windgem]

If you wait long enough, it always turns out I was right.

[Rían]

Milton? OMGoodness, some of his lines in Paradise Lost bring me to tears ...

[Pitchike12]

I don't really like William Shakespeare in my real life, but have to read it to school. Plus it's kind'a boring to me. Everything is only play.

[EllethValatari]

Originally Posted by Pitchike12

I don't really like William Shakespeare in my real life, but have to read it to school. Plus it's kind'a boring to me. Everything is only play.

Only play?

I haven't read much. Julius Caesar was very well-written and entertaining, but R&J was too romantic for my tastes. I am, however, very fond of his sonnets. My favorite is Sonnet 8-I liked it so much I memorized it .

Music to hear, why hear'st thou music sadly?
Sweets with sweets war not, joy delights in joy.
Why lovest thou that which thou receivest not gladly,
Or else receivest with pleasure thine annoy?
If the true concord of well-tuned sounds,
By unions married, do offend thine ear,
They do but sweetly chide thee, who confounds
In singleness the parts that thou shouldst bear.
Mark how one string, sweet husband to another,
Strikes each in each by mutual ordering,
Resembling sire and child and happy mother
Who all in one, one pleasing note do sing:
Whose speechless song, being many, seeming one,
Sings this to thee: 'thou single wilt prove none.'

[Gwaimir Windgem]

But the play is the fun part!

I also love the Sonnets, Elleth. My favorite of the plays is Lear; Hamlet and Julius Caesar are probably tied for my second favourite.

[GrayMouser]

Given the weather lately, this is the one that comes to mind right now:

When icicles hang by the wall
And Dick the shepherd blows his nail
And Tom bears logs into the hall,
And milk comes frozen home in pail,
When Blood is nipped and ways be foul,
Then nightly sings the staring owl,
Tu-who;
Tu-whit, tu-who: a merry note,
While greasy Joan doth keel the pot.

When all aloud the wind doth blow,
And coughing drowns the parson's saw,
And birds sit brooding in the snow,
And Marian's nose looks red and raw
When roasted crabs hiss in the bowl,
Then nightly sings the staring owl,
Tu-who;
Tu-whit, tu-who: a merry note,
While greasy Joan doth keel the pot.

[Rían]

I just took a break from doing the dishes to check the Moot, and I see ... dishes!

*goes back to the pots*

(but I'm not greasy)